The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) participates in criminal conspiracies by helping human traffickers smuggle the children of illegal immigrants into the U.S. through the Mexican border, according to a scathing federal court order that accuses the agency of “rewarding criminal conduct instead of enforcing the current laws.”

It’s so outrageous it would seem like a fabricated story if it weren’t outlined in an official court document issued recently by Judge Andrew S. Hanen in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Judge Hanen reveals that the specific case outlined in the order is not unique but rather the fourth in as many weeks involving similar schemes and atrocious conduct by the federal agency responsible for protecting national security.

“This court is quite concerned with the apparent policy of the Department of Homeland Security of completing the criminal mission of individuals who are violating the border security of the United States,” Judge Hanen writes. It gets better. The judge reveals that American taxpayers are funding these illicit plots. “The big economic losers in this scenario are the citizens of the United States who, by virtue of this DHS policy, are helping fund these evil ventures with their tax dollars,” the order says.

The case involves a 10-year-old girl with an illegal immigrant mother living in Virginia. The mother, Patricia Elizabeth Salmeron Santos, agreed to pay a smuggler $8,500 to bring the girl to Virginia from El Salvador. The smuggler received a $6,000 advance, but got busted by the U.S. Border Patrol en route. The government still delivered the girl to her illegal alien mother in the U.S. and Uncle Sam picked up the tab for travel, lodging and the federal escort. Nothing happened to the illegal alien mother who hired the smuggler.

A number of other cases with similar circumstances have come before this particular court and the judge expresses outrage in the ruling. “The DHS, instead of enforcing our border security laws, actually assisted the criminal conspiracy in achieving its illegal goals,” he writes. “It completed the mission of the conspiracy initiated by Slameron Santos. In summary, instead of enforcing the laws of the United States, the government took direct steps to help the individuals who violated it. A private citizen would, and should, be prosecuted for this conduct.”

Because drug cartels control immigrant smuggling operations along the southern border, DHS is also assisting those criminal enterprises. The agency confirmed to the court that it won’t prosecute illegal immigrant parents for smuggling their kids into the U.S. nor does it have any intention of deporting them. This not only rewards criminal conduct, the judge says, it encourages parents to seriously jeopardize the safety of their children.

Some of the smuggled kids are abandoned by their smugglers, assaulted, kidnapped, raped or killed, the judge writes. He mentions recent cases in which two illegal aliens drowned, two more are missing and a Salvadorian toddler was abandoned by smugglers just outside of Brownsville Texas. Judge Hanen offers a more sensible solution to this growing problem of separated immigrant families.

“The DHS could reunite the parent and child by apprehending the parent who has committed not one, but at least two different crimes,” the order says. “It would be more efficient for the government to arrest the individuals who are not only in the country illegally, but while in the country illegally are also fostering illegal conspiracies.”